Eldur Runes

Written Runes

Eldur runes feature many similarities to arcane and dwarfish runes, sharing many of their sharp angles and blocky designs. These styles are contrasted by the strange flowing lines between runes when forming more complex sentences, these lines drawing from the flowing and curvy style of elven script. Writing these runes considerable education and talent to scribe. Without proper mental protections, even touching a quill to paper with the intent to print an Eldur rune can cause the scribe to fall into a trance. Unprepared and unwitting scribes who accidently end up attempting to transcribe a document featuring one of these runes are often found days later, starving and furiously writing seemingly meaningless combinations of runes in their own blood.

Unlike many of the traditional languages of Kunnow, the Eldur language does not contain many "words." Eldur runes convey either abstract concepts that can be applied to a multitude of different objects, feelings, or phenomenon depending on the context of the surrounding runes, or more importantly the location and date of their transcription. Every document transcribed in Eldur runes includes a date, although it doesn't utilize the Sennetherian calendar, but rather refers to star coordinates relative to the location of the author. Two documents that utilize identical runes but are written in different seasons or locations can result in two entirely different translations. The most powerful transcriptions can be made when certain stars are in precise alignment with the location of a tear in a plane, those weak points where one may stumble between planes unintentionally.

Spoken Runes

When a properly trained reader speaks an Eldur transcript, it is similar to when an arcane master begins casting a spell. Instead of the feeling of the weave being pulled to the reader's will, listeners will often recall that the speaker does not sound as if they are reading the script, but rather they are being spoken through by something immortal and otherworldly. The Eldur tongue contains many sounds that the mortal races of Kunnow are incapable of producing, including bones clattering, ocean waves, stones grinding, and stars dying. Untrained and unprepared readers do so at their own folly, as uttering these forbidden words without training and protection can result in both mental corruption and physical disembowelment if any element is under or over pronounced.

Just like the written language, the timing and location of reading of the Eldur tongue can affect it's translation, and the effect of the words. For most basic single, double, or triple rune documents, reading them at anytime will result in similar translations and effects. As the document grows more complex, the importance of replicating the timing and location of the reading increases to avoid faults that may result in decimation of the speaker and the audience.